Objective/Context:

This article explains the formation of a toxic urban landscape around the landfill Doña Juana in Bogotá from 1998 to 2019, as a result of an exchange between sanitary engineers and the circulation of capital under a framework of neoliberal policies of refuse collection and its impact on poor urban territories.

Methodology:

The historical analysis results from a diverse set of documents (press, technical reports, judicial files and interviews). This enables the reconstruction of a three-decade long process that included the design and operation of the landfill in south Bogotá, which resulted in a toxic landscape. The project is not limited to a local outlook. Rather, it argues that refuse management happens under a global framework of circulation of technologies and financial resources.

Originality:

The article addresses several historiographic perspectives (environmental, social and urban history) to show the political, technical and environmental complexity of refuse and its management, specifically when dealing with disposing infrastructure such as landfills. Besides storing waste, these landfills evidence conflicting social and environmental situations to the extent in which these place stress on political capacities of players such as the State, the market and landfill-related citizens.

Conclusions:

This analysis leads to the conclusion that the landfill, once planned as a technical solution for urban waste, wound up worsening the conditions of social and environmental inequality at the poverty periphery in Bogotá, while at the same time it sparked a social struggle in defense of the territory.

        · resumo em Português | Espanhol     · texto em Espanhol     · Espanhol ( pdf )